More Creepy Mormon Machinations

If the theocratic efforts of the Mormons in pushing Proposition 8 and forcing their extremist views on all Californians wasn't bad enough, this new story from the New York Times takes the creepiness factor to a whole new level and underscores that the Mormons - or at least a goodly percentage of them - have utter disdain for the concept of freedom of (or from) religion embodied in the U.S. Constitution. I find it telling that it's the Mormons and their whacked out religions fanatic allies who seek to undermine the Constitution, not Barack Obama and the Democrats. In fact, if undermining the Constitution is traitorous, then it is they who are traitors. Here are some story highlights on the bizarre practice of "converting" those who have previously died (it's weird and sick, but so then are Mormons):

*

NEW YORK (AP) -- Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

*
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.

*
But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must ''implement a mechanism to undo what you have done.'' ''Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable,'' said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.

*

Baptism by proxy allows faithful Mormons to have their ancestors baptized into the 178-year-old church, which they believe reunites families in the afterlife. Using genealogy records, the church also baptizes people who have died from all over the world and from different religions. Mormons stand in as proxies for the person being baptized and immerse themselves in a baptismal pool.

*

'Michel suggested that posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims play into the hands of Holocaust deniers. 'They tell me, that my parents' Jewishness has not been altered but ... 100 years from now, how will they be able to guarantee that my mother and father of blessed memory who lived as Jews and were slaughtered by Hitler for no other reason than they were Jews, will someday not be identified as Mormon victims of the Holocaust?'' Michel said Monday.
*

Helen Radkey, who has done contract work for the Holocaust group, said her research suggests that lists of Holocaust victims obtained from camp and government records are being dumped into the database. She said she has seen and recorded a sampling of several thousand entries that indicate baptisms had been conducted for Holocaust victims as recently as July.

*

In May, the Vatican ordered Catholic dioceses worldwide to withhold member registries from Mormons so that Catholics could not be baptized.